Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2014, Vol. 69 ›› Issue (12): 1833-1846.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201412009

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Spatial effects of high-speed rails on interurban economic linkages in China

Jiao'e WANG1(), Jingjuan JIAO1,2(), Fengjun JIN1   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modelling/Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2013-11-21 Revised:2014-05-28 Online:2014-12-25 Published:2014-12-25
  • Supported by:
    Project of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, No.2011RC201, No.2012QY004;National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41171107

Abstract:

As a new mode of transportation, the rapid development of high-speed rail (HSR) will bring a leap in the history of transportation and have a comprehensive impact on the regional structure, population mobility, geographical division of labors, regional linkages, land use, and so on. Therefore, it is significantly important to study the impacts of HSR on regional spatial interactions, especially under the background of regional economic integration. The paper researches the impact of high speed rail on the reconstruction of spatial economic linkages. Based on the GIS network analysis tools, this paper first calculates the time cost matrix of 333 prefecture-level administrative units and four municipalities, and then uses the gravity model to calculate the interurban economic linkages, and lastly analyzes the distribution of the total economic linkage and the economic linkages between any two cities. In order to analyze the impact of HSR on regional spatial interaction, this paper resumes three scenarios: the current transport network in 2012 without the HSR network (scenario 1), the current transport network in 2012 (scenario 3), and the planning HSR network in 2020 (scenario 3) based on the current transport network, to calculate the time cost matrix of 337 cities. Results indicate that: (1) Cities in the east have the highest economic linkages, and cities with the highest increase of economic linkages are located along the HSR lines, which will lead to regional restructuring; (2) The development of HSR lines will improve the economic linkages between cities, and the increasing rate during the first period (comparing scenario 2 with scenario 1) is much higher than that during the second period (comparing scenario 3 with scenario 2); (3) From different perspectives and regional scales, the development of HSR has different impacts on spatial difference; (4) It is possible for cities in a long distance to have high economic linkages with the construction of HSR lines, which could also change the linkage directions.

Key words: high-speed rail, network analysis, economic linkage, spatial disparity, China